Two kites trying to have some respite by quenching their thirst from the stagnant water sprayed on a field on Dhaka University campus Friday, though the temperature dropped slightly across the capital on the day. — FE Photo by Shafiqul Alam
An acute shortage of fresh water is causing untold sufferings to the city dwellers as sizzling summer heat has been prevailing across the country.
To meet the growing demand of water, Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (WASA) is struggling with its limited capacity.
Officials and experts said excess lifting of groundwater, the prevailing hot weather that has further pushed down the groundwater level, pollution of natural water bodies, power outage, overpopulation and policy failures are the factors causing the acute water crisis in the city.
The gap between demand and supply has left dwellers of many areas of the capital without the basic need in recent days.
The areas in which city people are suffering from water crisis include Eskaton, Moghbazar, Mirpur, Kazipara, Shewrapara, Badda-Gulshan, Khilgaon, Bashabo, Mugda, Madartek, Azimpur, most parts of Old Dhaka, Hazaribagh, Mohammadpur, Dhanmondi-Shankar and Kalyanpur.
Residents claimed that the water supplied by the WASA was inadequate and in some areas the piped-water was also too much polluted and unfit for consumption.
"Life has become horrible here as I failed to get a single drop of piped water in the last two days," said Sajedul Karim, a government official who lives at 113/1 New Eskaton.
Expressing dissatisfaction over the activities of the capital's utility service providers, he said they have communicated with the system operation and control wing of WASA in Ramna area but in vain.
When contacted, Executive Engineer of the WASA's lone operation and control wing Abdul Mazid acknowledged the issue of water crisis, saying that they are assigned to make alternative arrangements to supply water for the city dwellers.
"The emergency calls for water-carrying lorry and truck have gone up significantly in recent days. In fact we're working hard to cope with the demand with limited logistics," he said.
Sanjida Khanom, a housewife of Dilu Road, said they often find it hard to cook and do other household work due to inadequate supply of water.
"My husband and son collected water from a WASA pump located in front of Janakantha Bhaban on Eskaton road in the early morning," she said.
Long queues of the poor can be seen at WASA pumps to have water on a daily basis.
A senior official of WASA said the water crisis has surfaced as the demand for it has gone up significantly in the capital because of excessive hot weather.
He said the WASA-installed water pumps can lift up 2.22 billion litres of water a day on an average against the usual demand of 2.20 billion litres.
But in the ongoing summer season when the country witnessed the highest temperature in 54 years, the water-consumption demand has now risen to around 2.35 billion litres a day, he said.
WASA has a total of 670 water pumps set up at different parts of the capital, of which 384 have back-up generators and 200 have dual electricity connections, they mentioned.
Seeking anonymity, an official of a water pump said there are some pumps, which need to be replaced immediately as those could not lift up even 1300 litres of water per minute.
"The standard benchmark of pumping up water by WASA is 2,000 litres per minute," he said.
Meanwhile, water experts said the government should rethink about the planning of the city which keeps no space for recharging the groundwater.
Suggesting use of the surface water, they said the natural water bodies and rivers like Buriganga, Turag, Bongshi, Balu, Shitalakshya have to be freed from pollution for the future of the city.
The Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) report 2010 showed that the groundwater level of Dhaka has depleted by 7 metres in last 7 years.
© 2026 - All Rights with The Financial Express
